


Getting Along

by Drakey



Series: Not So Much [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Apartment Living, Arguments, Getting along, Neat freaks, Slobs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-20
Updated: 2014-02-20
Packaged: 2018-01-13 04:22:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1212511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drakey/pseuds/Drakey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry and Draco share an apartment. It works better than you'd think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Getting Along

**Author's Note:**

> Have you ever seen The Odd Couple? This is a rather Odd-Couple-ish idea that occurred to me. It was too cute to not write, so I thought I might as well.

Draco Malfoy glared across the table at Harry Potter. That any one man could chew so loudly was astonishing, and that he could do so with such apparent relish was infuriating. 

"Honestly, Potter," he growled, then took a deep breath and continued more normally. "Would you please close your mouth when you're eating? The spectacle of watching you eat is disgusting enough. I don't need to hear it as well."

Harry swallowed and gestured with a sauce-smeared fork. "I made the food," he pointed out.

"And yet I ate it without hesitation. Clearly, I'm mad." Draco sighed and fed himself another precise bite. "Merlin knows you must have done something egregiously wrong in the process."

"Nothing blew up," Harry said smugly.

"And if it had, I would know it, because it would still be smeared across the ceiling."

Harry's reply had to fight its way past a mouthful of pasta. "I didn't ask you to clean off the potions lab when you blew up that cauldron."

"There was glowing purple fog pouring out of the door! Our apartment building is run by muggles! What if someone saw?"

Harry swallowed again. "Didn't ask you to move in with me, either. You just figured I'd be fine with it."

"You're fine with my half of rent," Draco grumped. 

"Actually, I'm insidiously altering your attitudes," Harry shot back. There was something about a twenty-year-old man waggling his fingers that way that ground on Draco's last nerve. It might have had something to do with the horrendous mismatch between the gesture and the unfairly mature-looking beard he'd sprouted since his latest breakup with the Weasley... thing.

"You know, you're actually tolerable when you're dating," Draco said darkly. "Why don't you go shag something so you'll come back biddable and I can make you clean the kitchen."

Harry shrugged. "Mrs. Turnby would probably get mad if she caught me sniffing around her dog again." He grinned at his rude joke, and then laughed aloud when Draco cringed at the image.

"I was referring," Draco said frigidly, "to a woman."

Harry snorted. "Sure you're not trying to seduce me, Malfoy?"

"Oh for... I'M NOT GAY, POTTER!" Draco shoved his plate towards the middle of the table and stormed out of the room. He leaned back around the doorjamb and waved his wand at the plate, and Harry smirked as it lifted to the sink, clearing off as it went.

"I knew you couldn't stop yourself from cleaning it," Harry said.

"I changed my mind, Potter," Draco said. "Go have a tumble with Turnby's dog."

+----+

Draco was reading a book by the time Harry sat down next to him in the sitting room. He glanced up at his roommate, then firmly fixed his gaze on his book once again. Harry shifted uncomfortably, and Draco cleared his throat and turned a page.

"I cleaned up the kitchen," Harry said. 

"Huzzah," Draco replied flatly.

"Put away the leftovers, too," Harry added contritely.

"So very proud of you," Draco deadpanned.

"I'm sorry," Harry finished.

For a moment, the apology didn't register, and then Draco turned a curious look on Harry. "What?"

Harry leaned back against one of the cushions of the ratty old couch he called furniture. "I was only poking fun. I do it to Ron all the time. I forget you're not him, sometimes. Er... Don't tell him I said that, he'd pull my head off and leave it someplace foul." Harry took a deep breath and leaned forward. "It's only... We've been living in the same apartment for two weeks now, and it sort of feels like a victory every time I don't get my bollocks hexed off by the end of the day." Draco winced at Harry's inelegant language, but Harry bulled on. "I don't dislike you, really, I don't. I sort of... burned out on hating you when we were in school. I don't mean we have to be friends, but can't we at least be comfortable around each other?"

"Can you put on trousers in the morning?" Draco asked.

Harry blinked. "I'd have to get some."

"Didn't the Weasley Thing buy you a few sets?" Draco's arched eyebrow--he knew it made Harry jealous that he could do that--asked the sad little question of what had happened to them.

"When she called me a media-hound, I used them to sop up motor oil from the car."

Draco shook his head. Harry's insistence on maintaining a car that was so old, even the muggles wouldn't stop talking about it had led to more than one inane argument, but that one, at least, Draco had learned to avoid. "I'll lend you a pair if it means I don't have to count the holes in your pants. Didn't something like that happen to the old sofa?"

"That was Ginny," Harry cut in quickly. "She bat-bogeyed it and it exploded. Second breakup." He smiled wistfully. "Merlin, but I love her."

Draco peered down at his book, but he couldn't pretend he was reading. "I'm not going to tell the Prophet reporters that you were always so quiet when they come asking if there was any sign you might have a breakdown."

Harry snorted with laughter. "You know you're bloody hilarious when you want to be, right?"

+----+

"And what foul thing are you inflicting on me today, Potter?" Draco asked as Harry put a white box in front of him. There was a little red picture of a pagoda on the side of it.

"Generally, it's called rice," Harry said, putting his feet up on the coffee table even though he _knew_ it drove Draco to distraction. At least, since their talk a few weeks ago, he didn't do it specifically _to_ irk him.

"Feet," Draco said.

Harry gave a mournful look to his shoes and then transferred them to the ottoman Draco had bought specially for keeping feet off the coffee table. It was better than nothing. Draco opened the box and stared at the firmly-packed white rice inside. "You have a loose definition of 'rice,' Potter," Draco said accusingly.

"Well, the sign over the Chinese place said 'Great Taste', and I thought, six-foot neon red letters on a shack that used to sell fish and chips can't be wrong." He handed Draco a little white plastic fork wrapped in that foul cellophane the muggles used that got absolutely everywhere. Draco rolled his eyes and went to go get plates from the kitchen. "Sit down, Draco," Harry said before he could get properly off the sofa.

"Why?"

"Because it's Chinese, and we're going to do it right. That means no plates, no forks, we just sit here and eat out of the boxes, and we're done when there's no more."

Draco stared into the box of rice, but he honestly couldn't bring himself to argue with Harry. "You're cleaning this up," he said.

"If we do it right, that means I'll throw away some boxes and laugh about how much of a mess you thought we were going to make." Harry grabbed a cellophane-wrapped something from the plastic bag the food had come in and presented it to Draco. "Fortune cookie?"

Draco took the cookie, shrugged, opened it, and popped it into his mouth.

"Er," Harry said.

Draco slowly pulled the scrap of paper out of his mouth, carefully chewed and swallowed the (surprisingly tasty) cookie, and read off of the scrap, "it's what's inside that counts."

Harry laughed. "Too bad it warned you after you ate the cookie!"

+----+

"Heard you and Astoria last night," Harry said conversationally while he spooned something gross onto his waffles. It looked like chocolate powder.

"You bloody well did not," Draco said. "I was a perfect gentleman."

"That's not what she called you," Harry said. He started spreading peanut butter over his chocolated waffle. He was going to get fat, and Draco was going to be smug about it, and it would be perfectly justified.

Draco took an apple from the basket. His breakfast, at least, was healthy.

+----+

"Uuuugh!" Harry said feelingly for at least the twelfth time. Draco handed him another scented candle. 

"Try this one. Perhaps it won't offend your delicate sensibilities." He shot a mildly offended look at the shopkeeper. She kept staring.

"It smells like flowers threw up in a laundry basket," Harry said.

Draco sniffed at the candle, then sighed and put it away. "You didn't like the mint because it smelled like gum, you rejected everything with 'linen' in the name because your aunt used them, and now you're rejecting all the flowery scents as well? I'm beginning to suspect that you prefer the smell of burnt spaghetti sauce to a tolerable apartment. Or are you just trying to drive me out?"

Harry pursed his lips. "You know I'm not trying to drive you out, Draco. I just... really, really hate this place. It smells so... fruity."

"And I would prefer that you enjoy the way the apartment smells," Draco replied. 

Harry looked around, grabbed a candle with a picture of a beach on it, and sniffed it. He made a little humming noise. "How about this one, then?"

Draco sniffed and smelled a beach. He shrugged. "I didn't think you were so tropical, Potter."

"You just make me want to escape to the Caribbean," Harry said.

Draco chuckled and took the candle to the counter before Harry could change his mind. As the shopkeeper handed over the bag with the purchase inside, she smiled. "You know, you two are an adorable couple," she said. 

Draco fixed her with a death glare. "If I were to abruptly decide that I've had enough of my fiancee, and elect, inexplicably, to begin shagging men, I assure you that my roommate would not be on the list of men to shag. He befouled the kitchen with spaghetti sauce on a stove burner, and we have been trying to get rid of the smell ever since. Don't assume. It makes you seem like sort of a--"

"All right, Draco, come along!" Harry dragged Draco away and turned to speak to the insulted shopkeeper over his shoulder. "Sorry, he's just a bit tetchy about people thinking he's gay. His mum gave him the we-accept-you-no-matter-who-you-love speech a few too many times."

"Still can't believe she did it twice for you," Draco murmured. "And once in front of Astoria..."

+----+

Draco looked at the apartment. It was bare from floor to ceiling. Everything gone, and so few lingering stains. "I still can't believe they're letting you keep the security deposit," he said.

Harry shrugged. "Magic covers up a lot of stains. Fixes some holes, too. So, three days, Malfoy Manor, right?"

Draco nodded. "Yes. I still can't believe you talked me into making you my best man."

Harry chuckled. "I thought it was the done thing. After all, Ron'll be furious." He turned out the lights and left.

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea why they're sharing an apartment, or even in an apartment, but the gag doesn't work otherwise.


End file.
